


5 Times Shepard Hated Kaidan & 1 Time She Didn't

by asexualshepard



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Angst, Explicit Language, F/M, I wrote this in 4 hours and I want to throw myself off a building, kind of she lays a few f bombs but hey, sorry but the asexual doesn't write smut so there's none of that
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-30
Updated: 2015-06-30
Packaged: 2018-04-06 22:54:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,724
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4239744
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/asexualshepard/pseuds/asexualshepard
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Shepard and Kaidan have a complex relationship and, through almost all of it, she hates his guts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	5 Times Shepard Hated Kaidan & 1 Time She Didn't

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first full-length piece I've written in, like, two years or something stupid like that. God bless fShenko for giving me the motivation to actually write something; I forgot how much I love it.

**5 Times Shepard Hated Kaidan and 1 Time She ~~Didn’t~~ Couldn’t**

 

Shepard always took a while to form opinions about the soldiers at her command; she wanted to be able to fully understand how they performed in the field, whether or not they were willing to do whatever was necessary to complete the mission. The same went for Lieutenant Alenko, despite the fact that it was nice to fight alongside another biotic or even that he was talented. As she did with all her soldiers, she was going to give him a few more missions before she decided if he was going to be of use to her.

Then he ambushed her.

“But, is that why you’re here? Because of your family?”

To the Lieutenant, only a second passed before Shepard politely excused herself and went to debrief Williams. To Shepard herself, though, it felt like days.

No one asked her about her personal life. She made sure of that. If someone decided they wanted to be her friend, she barked orders at them until they hated her guts. She’d done just that throughout the mission on Eden Prime, making sure he’d never want to be too close to her.

She didn’t know what made her loathe him more, the fact that—despite all of her attempts to make him dislike her—he was still interested in learning about her, or that he asked her about her family.

In that second that the Lieutenant didn’t notice, Shepard felt the strong urge to punch him in the face.

She doubted even that would make him hate her.

And, oh boy, did that piss Shepard off.

 

* * *

 

 

Of the people available for ground-squad missions, Kaidan was one of the more able. He was incredibly skilled with his biotics, and he and Shepard worked well together. As angry as that made her, she sucked it up and dealt with it. There was a time and a place for her hatred towards him. Accomplishing the mission came first, and the success rate was always higher when he was on the ground with her.

Virmire was… wet. Even in the Mako, Shepard’s armor had gotten fairly soaked. She’d always hated water—or at least large bodies of it. The hair that had fallen out of her bun had plastered itself to her forehead and, as irritating as it was, she ignored it. She ignored it because the mission was still active, and if the mission was active, her feelings and urges took a back seat.

The facility needed to be nuked. If that didn’t happen, they’d have no chance of stopping Saren. There would be casualties—Shepard knew that. It was worth it, though.

Anything for the mission.

Of course, that didn’t mean she was going to leave anyone behind because it was easier to do so.

Shepard didn’t hesitate when Kaidan told her he needed a few minutes to set the bomb and to go get Ashley. Her whole squad was getting out with her, damn it. She needed everyone to stop Saren.

Shepard, Liara, and Garrus were running towards Ash’s position when the Geth drop-ship flew over their heads and towards the bomb site. Garrus said something, but too much adrenaline was pounding through Shepard’s ears for her to hear it. With a renewed fervor, she signaled the two behind her to push forward. They only made it a few feet before Ashley’s voice pushed through.

“Head’s up, LT. We just spotted a drop-ship headed to your location.”

“It’s already here! There’s Geth pouring out all over the bomb site!”

Shepard covered her ears to better hear what the hell was going on. “Can you hold them off?”

“There’s too many. I don’t think we can survive until you get here,” he said calmly. “I’m activating the bomb.”

“Alenko, what the fuck are you doing?”

“I’m just making sure this bomb goes off… no matter what.”

Shepard’s anger flared when her blood ran cold.

“It’s done, Commander. Go get Williams, and get the hell out of here!”

“Screw that!” Ashley sounded just as pissed as Shepard felt. “We can handle ourselves. Go back and get Alenko.”

Shepard’s response was immediate. And that terrified her.

“Alenko, radio Joker and tell him to meet us at the bomb site.”

Kaidan’s response was drowned out by her thoughts. Why had she said that? Shepard didn’t like Ashley either—of course, she didn’t like anyone—but Kaidan had pissed her off since day one. She should’ve left his ass and saved the gunnery-chief so she had more balance in the biotic and firepower departments. All logic told her that she made the wrong choice. This only left one explanation.

She wanted Alenko to live.

And her desire to beat him to a pulp had never been stronger.

 

* * *

 

 

Seeing Kaidan on Horizon reminded Shepard exactly how much she hated him. He’d twisted her death, her silence, even his God damn grief and made it sound like she did it to spite him. He took every explanation and apology she had to give and threw it back in her face. He accused her of betraying the Alliance, of betraying him, and then he had the audacity to send her further communications.

He apologized. He gave explanations. He talked about them like she’d never cared for him in the least. This correspondence was meant to be an apology on his part, and he still twisted it to make it sound like he didn’t have a choice. He acted as if he was right about _everything_. He treated her like a child incapable of understanding right from wrong, and nothing he’d ever done had made her so angry. _She_ was the one that died. _She_ was the one on a suicide mission that could only be completed with the help of an organization that she’d seen ruin lives.

She played the message on repeat.

By the third time she listened to it, she’d thrown the data pad on her desk across the room.

By the eleventh time, every single one of her model ships had been smashed against the empty fish tank.

By the fifteenth time, the tank bore a crack that refused to let the water out to wash away the blood staining Shepard’s knuckles.

By the twentieth time, Garrus was there, turning off Kaidan’s voice and coercing her down to the bar on the crew deck. He knew her too well.

On the twenty-first time, she paused it half way through and composed her own letter. Well, if you could call it a letter. It only bore two words.

Fuck. You.

And then she deleted it and went back to the bar to down on her own.

 

* * *

 

 

“You asshole…” Shepard mumbled into her hands. Her elbows were digging into the space behind her kneecaps, but she needed a place to rest her head. Her eyes were fixed on the dark bruises that ran along both of his cheekbones, the cracks in his lips. He wouldn’t wake up. She knew that. But she needed to… she didn’t know what she needed. To scream at him? To shout profanities until he learned that if he died she’d bring him back just to kill him herself?

She wanted to shout at his unconscious body until it made her feel better, but she was tired.

She was pissed, and she was _tired_.

“You promised me,” she seethed, taking her head from her hands and leaning towards his bed. “You promised that you wouldn’t die. I don’t care if I broke my half, you still fucking _promised_.”

She pushed away the urge to spit at him, but only because she knew there were doctors waiting in the doorway for her to leave.

“Fuck you… Fuck you and your need to protect everybody else.”

She rubbed her face with the heels of her palms, shoving the moisture in her eyes onto them so she could wipe them on her pants. Her hands ran over the top of her head, as if her emotions were trapped there and she could wipe them away so she didn’t have to face them.

A tapping sound seemed to echo through the room. Shepard turned to see a doctor standing at the door, tapping on his wrist. She nodded at him curtly and stood.

“The next time I’m in this room,” she ground out as she turned to Kaidan’s motionless body one more time. “You better be able to fight back, you little shit.”

 

* * *

 

 

“Spectre Kaidan Alenko,” Shepard said through an incredibly fake smile. “That’s a big deal.”

If Kaidan noticed her falsified happiness, he didn’t say anything. He said something about humans and a ceremony, but Shepard was trying her best to hold it together. It’s not that she wasn’t happy for Kaidan. No, if anyone deserved to represent humanity, it was Kaidan. But it was just… one more thing. One more thing that would put him in harm’s way.

He stopped talking, so Shepard pulled something out of her ass. “You ready to take on that responsibility?”

He rambled on a bit more, and Shepard worked hard to catch the gist of it in order to formulate the appropriate response. In return, she mumbled some bullshit about Eden Prime; the roots were always a safe bet when talking about promotions.

Then there was an awkward pause, and Shepard’s self-control decided to go outside and take a walk.

“I thought you might wanna join the Normandy,” she blurted. She wanted him in sight at all times so she could make sure he didn’t die.

“Yeah,” he replied. She must have done a good job of hiding how much she’d _really_ wanted to ask that question. “I have thought about that.” Shepard felt like she’d been punched in the gut. “I need to get out of here first, though… take care of some things. I’ve been trying to locate my old spec ops squads, my students, from Biotics Division.”

Shepard was being torn in two. Her self-control returned to find a rabid dog snarling and pulling on its chain, trying its hardest to force its way out of its small, controlled area. She wanted to tell Kaidan he needed to be on the Normandy. Every bone in her body itched to fight with him about what he should count as a priority. Were the Reapers not a good enough goal?

She wanted to scream at him until he saw where he needed to be, but she knew that—at least this time— _she_ was the one being irrational. Kaidan had a life outside of the Normandy, outside of their relationship, and especially after she was dead for two years.

So she let her self-control run the show.

“Any luck?”

A few more pleasantries were exchanged, and then Shepard wished him the best.

When she got back to the Normandy, she managed to get Vega to spar with her, and she told herself she’d feel bad for the bruises she left on the unsuspecting lieutenant at a later date.

 

* * *

 

 

Shepard had been scared a lot of times. If there was one thing she was happy to admit to, it was that. Fear kept you light on your feet. Fear kept you alive.

But there was something different about being afraid when you knew it wasn’t going to save you. It was panic. It made you feel like you were already dead and nothing was real anymore. In a really fucked up, twist-about kind of way, it made you fearless.

When Shepard was looking forward, tripping on her own feet and the bodies of her fellow soldiers, that’s the kind of fear she was experiencing. Getting to that beam. That was the only reason she was alive. And that was good. She had a goal—she only needed to accomplish it.

Then she saw the tank flying towards her. That fear helped her duck beneath it as it spun wildly over her head.

But she made the mistake of following it with her eyes.

Behind her, Kaidan and Liara were running after her. Another tank a few yards ahead of them was flicked up into the air, though Shepard was too disoriented to see how. It spun just as wildly as the one that had nearly crushed her and landed on its nose right in front of her teammates. Both of them jumped out of the way as the tank exploded, but Shepard had seen explosions before. She knew how shrapnel worked.

It was with that realization that the dead-fear vanished and the normal, hand-shaking fear flooded her veins. She ran up and jumped the wreckage of the tank, looking for any sign of Kaidan. Her brain tried to convince her she wanted to make sure Liara was alright as well, but Shepard knew she was just lying to herself in order to maintain some semblance of decency in her last hour.

She was relieved to find the two of them fairly close to each other. As always, Kaidan was making sure everyone else was alright as he bled onto the ground. Shepard heard nothing but the sounds of metal cracking and breaking as she pulled Kaidan’s arm around her shoulders and ushered Liara behind one of the larger pieces of wreckage. She couldn’t hear herself as she shouted at Joker through her com. She was on auto-pilot at the moment.

She somehow heard the Normandy before she saw it. When the sound of engines and jets flared in her eardrums, she pulled Kaidan’s arm around her shoulders once more and pulled him to his feet. She signaled Liara forward as the cargo bay door opened and the three ran onto the declining platform.

Liara knew before Shepard said anything. Her hand was already reaching out to take Kaidan as Shepard approached. Shepard thanked her as best as she could through eye contact as she passed him off. Kaidan soon realized what was happening and struggled in Liara’s grasp.

“Shepard!” he shouted, his voice somehow reaching her past the noise of the battlefield.

“You’ve gotta get out of here.”

And he somehow heard her.

“Yeah,” he muttered. “That’s not gonna happen.”

As always, she wanted to be mad at him for not letting her protect him. She wanted to shove him and tell him to get the fuck out of there, but she didn’t. Not this time.

“Don’t argue with me Kaidan.” Her voice was near a whisper now, and he somehow still managed to understand and reach out to her. She was breaking her promise again, and he knew he wouldn’t be able to stop her.

“Don’t leave me behind,” he demanded, his voice stronger than his eyes.

She only had one thing left she could do, and she knew it was going to kill them both, but that’s what love is, right?

“No matter what happens,” she muttered, stepping up the incline so she could touch his face one last time. “Know that I love you. Always.”

He didn’t blink, his brown eyes illuminated by the bright light from the beam. Blood looked like freckles on his face, still wet on his skin as though it would never dry. She stared at him for what felt like an eternity, memorizing as much of his face as she could so that when she died, she could pretend he was still staring at her.

Finally, his eyelids flickered, and he moved closer to her.

“I love you, too.”

Her fingertips smeared the splotches of blood on his jaw as they dropped from his face. She began back-stepping off of the cargo bay door. As she took the last step onto the hardened dirt of the field, he whispered one last thing. She couldn’t hear it, but she knew what he said.

“Be careful.”

He reached out to her as she shouted at him, telling everyone to go before the Normandy went down with her commanding officer. If she’d had more time, she might have told him how sorry she was. But she couldn’t. He was gone.

And with Kaidan gone, the dead-fear returned, and she raced toward the beam. He was an abstract concept now. As she ran, part of her wondered if—maybe—he’d never existed. Maybe there was no Kaidan.

But that didn’t matter.

Because even the abstract idea of Kaidan Alenko was worth saving.


End file.
